Chapter Text
Wei Ying is, admittedly, a pretty easy going person- almost so much so that it’s to the point of incredulity. His immediate thought after he was flung into the burial mounds by Wen Chao was ‘ oh, this fucking sucks.’
...Alright his lax attitude was perhaps a little overdone.
But the important thing right now was the fact that he was always one to tend to go with the proverbial flow.
He simply just wasn’t the type for worrying over semantics and ridiculously overbearing rules…
But this situation… It… It was beginning to get to him now.
“Lan Zhan, my love ? ”
“Mhm?”
“Where the hell are we?”
The pair of them stare in complete awe at the area around them, filled with the tallest buildings either of them had ever bore witness to… some of them were, perhaps, just as grand as the great mountain that the cloud recess had been built upon. They towered over all the people below- looking as if they were scraping the sky with their points.
Incredible flashing lights all about the landscape blind Wei Ying with their vibrancy- from vivid red hues to overbearing purple shades… They are overwhelmingly prevalent- akin to the flashes of energy he’d seen when fighting another cultivator- only now they were constant and relentless in their action.
Strange metallic contraptions move about on the ground just as their swords did, transporting a person from one place to another- some even more than two at a time!
...Yet these peculiar objects did not fly in the air, no, they were wheeled on the ground like a cart- but ten times faster.
The people around them are dressed extremely strangely too, with no robes to be seen within a hundred metre stretch. The kind of cloth wrapped around these people’s bodies is far more fitted- and in some cases, almost obscenely so . Wei Ying has to keep himself from openly gaping at every passerby he sees.
And the hair… the hair- everywhere Wei Ying looked it was cropped short, so short that he had to blink a few times to make sure he was seeing correctly.
This… This was…
They were nowhere near home right now, were they?
“Wei Ying…” Lan Zhan is right beside him, looking just as confused. He was most definitely disguising his emotions much better than the former, but Wei Ying could tell by that particular set in his jaw- and the hardened gold of his eyes that this situation had his husband entirely perplexed as well .
...And it definitely took a lot to visibly confuse the legendary Lan Wangji.
People were staring at them too- many of them had even stopped their milling about to specifically do so. They glanced up from their peculiar handheld black boxes to behold the two cultivators before them- as if they were the strange ones.
It had gotten to the point where there was a small crowd gathered around the pair of them- surrounding both Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian from nearly every angle.
“Wah, those guys are super handsome… What’s with the cosplay though?”
Cosplay?
“I didn’t know there were any conventions around here?”
Conventions?
“Maybe they’re shooting a new historical drama and got lost?”
Historical drama?
One particular man catches Wei Ying’s interest. He’s in the stark centre of the crowd, positioned in the frontward middle of both Wei Ying and Lan Zhan. He looked to have raised his own small box object up toward his own face- like some sort of miniscule shielding device...
Wei Ying began to wonder just what in the world he was planning to do when the man seemingly summoned a short white flash from the box- completely out of nowhere.
Utterly at a loss on how to react- Wei Ying and Lan Zhan act instinctively and duck to protect themselves from the potentially dangerous beam of light that had moved over toward them.
So there were still cultivators in this strange realm that they’d found themselves in?
Another flash.
And another.
All from different angles of the crowd.
They all had terrible aim, however, because Wei Ying doesn’t manage to feel so much as a scratch on his person. He looks over to Lan Zhan and sees that he is the same.
Were they… were all these people challenging them?!
Wei Ying- confused or not- would never want to appear to be vulnerable in front of any kind of enemy. Even if he was perplexed out of his goddamn mind. It was never a good idea to appear weak in front of someone that wanted to hurt you...
Unwavering, he draws his sword and faces the man before him- the one that first used his flash beam on them. Lan Zhan beside him, willingly does the same. They stand back to back with each other- ready for a fight- and ready to face it together.
Just as they always did.
Wei Ying would have swooned if he wasn’t so fucking confused.
Watching the men unsheathe their blades, the crowd makes a collective noise of shock and amazement.
A reaction that does not inspire confidence within Wei Ying
And now they’re patronising us?! Just who were these people?
Still, he perseveres.
“What is your query with us, fellow cultivator?” Wei Ying speaks, trying his best to stop looking around at the everything that was invading his senses.
“Fellow cultivator?”
“Woah, they must be in character and everything.”
“Maybe they really don’t like having their pictures taken or something.”
“...Hey yeah, you should have asked their permission first!”
The man, whom Wei Ying had drawn his blade against first, holds his hands up in an apologetic gesture. One that even Wei Ying could comprehend in a world as puzzling as this one.
He bows lightly, “sorry dude, I just really liked your cosplay.”
Wei Ying raises his eyebrows and replies questioningly, “Dude?” just as Lan Zhan purses his lips and utters, “Cosplay?”
They exchange a mutual glance of extreme bamboozlement before sheathing their blades once more.
Whatever this was- it was not a threat at the given time.
That much was certain now… Perhaps.
“Maybe we can find the sect leader of these lands... establish what we’re even doing here.” Wei Ying says with a grumble- frustrated over knowing less and less about the place he was in the longer he stayed. “I don’t like how out in the open we are…”
“Hmm.” Lan Zhan replies in agreement.
In the distance Wei Ying spots another aspect of this strange place that catches his eye. Two bright illuminated arches shine over the tall building- a stark yellow in the sea of grey. It was easily one of the brightest objects in the horizon and unalike to anything Wei Ying had ever seen.
“There!” He points toward the golden arches. “That must be where they’re based!” He grabs a hold of Lan Zhan, firmly grasping his forearm, “come on, Lan Zhan! Let’s figure this out!” He nudges through the crowds with ease as they parted for them like the red sea.
‘Eh? why are they heading to McDonalds?”
“Guess they were hungry…”
“Aw I wanted another photo.”